February 12, 2018

1992. It was an Olympic year. Kim tolerated the hockey game in the background (US beat Finland 4 to 1).

With just two minutes left in the day, my baby girl was born.

My baby girl. My only girl. My favorite girl!

Here's a birthday top ten for my Shellie!

We share the same brain! How many times this year alone have we had the same thought about the same thing at the same moment? So freaky and so cool!

Shellie has that rare and wonderful gift of listening to me throughout the year and getting me the very thing I wanted! She makes me feel listened to and loved.

This year my baby became a home owner. The way it all came about had God's fingerprints all over it. It is a place that is all her!

Her moving out meant I got to move up. Out of the basement I came and to the upper level I went. I love her room...our room. Makes me think of her every time I walk in.

Shellie is a great sister. She has learned to roll with Brian's tweaks, and is always willing to help Nate at a moments notice with math.

She is a woman of tireless details. Picked this up from her mom. Details matter, and she sticks with it to the end.

God blessed Shellie with an artistic soul. This is most evident in her musical ability. I especially appreciate the way she tells a story through video. She's been our main producer of SouthField videos. Every story has been told with beauty!

I wish I could insert the best of Shellie's Snap Chats here. They are always so fun, usually sharing an interesting classroom moment.

She walks in and, no matter what, I feel a smile coming on!

I'm pretty tech savvy, but I am a digital immigrant, not a digital native. So, in the moments that I operate the remote like a geezer or scroll through images on my phone one at a time to find the one I want, she is quick to let me know it is time to get with it!

Oh shoot, this one is going to push me over the limit. Seizure lights! It's our new thing. As she drives away I blink the house lights until she goes around the corner. Our poor neighbors! What I did not know until recently is that she blinks her interior lights the whole time too, even though it makes her head buggy.

Shell, when I moved upstairs I brought my kneeler with me. It looks out the front window at your Birch tree. Every morning I go into our room, kneel and pray for you. God knows all the desires I have for you, and I know that He has so many more for you as well. This was a hard year as your mom lost her dad. So many moments with you centered around these events. It was so hard to realize the reason you were crying one day was because you knew one day this would be you and me. Little girl...I'm staying as long as I can! You give me too many reasons to want to go. I'll never forget you singing at grandpa's memorial. I have no idea how you did it. Actually I do. I've had to hold it together a few too many times as I led others in their grief. I know probably better than anyone else, that is not an easy thing to do. Not long ago we put that same song in the Sunday line up. As we rehearsed, you realized you could not do it as the voice choked and he tears flowed. I love that you own your emotion.